ABSTRACT Kepler provides light curves of 156,000 stars with unprecedented precision. However, the raw data as they come from the spacecraft contain significant systematic and stochastic errors. These ...errors, which include discontinuities, systematic trends, and outliers, obscure the astrophysical signals in the light curves. To correct these errors is the task of the Presearch Data Conditioning (PDC) module of the Kepler data analysis pipeline. The original version of PDC in Kepler did not meet the extremely high performance requirements for the detection of miniscule planet transits or highly accurate analysis of stellar activity and rotation. One particular deficiency was that astrophysical features were often removed as a side effect of the removal of errors. In this article we introduce the completely new and significantly improved version of PDC which was implemented in Kepler SOC version 8.0. This new PDC version, which utilizes a Bayesian approach for removal of systematics, reliably corrects errors in the light curves while at the same time preserving planet transits and other astrophysically interesting signals. We describe the architecture and the algorithms of this new PDC module, show typical errors encountered in Kepler data, and illustrate the corrections using real light curve examples.
ABSTRACT With the unprecedented photometric precision of the Kepler spacecraft, significant systematic and stochastic errors on transit signal levels are observable in the Kepler photometric data. ...These errors, which include discontinuities, outliers, systematic trends, and other instrumental signatures, obscure astrophysical signals. The presearch data conditioning (PDC) module of the Kepler data analysis pipeline tries to remove these errors while preserving planet transits and other astrophysically interesting signals. The completely new noise and stellar variability regime observed in Kepler data poses a significant problem to standard cotrending methods. Variable stars are often of particular astrophysical interest, so the preservation of their signals is of significant importance to the astrophysical community. We present a Bayesian maximum a posteriori (MAP) approach, where a subset of highly correlated and quiet stars is used to generate a cotrending basis vector set, which is in turn used to establish a range of "reasonable" robust fit parameters. These robust fit parameters are then used to generate a Bayesian prior and a Bayesian posterior probability distribution function (PDF) which, when maximized, finds the best fit that simultaneously removes systematic effects while reducing the signal distortion and noise injection that commonly afflicts simple least-squares (LS) fitting. A numerical and empirical approach is taken where the Bayesian prior PDFs are generated from fits to the light-curve distributions themselves.
The Kepler mission has to date found almost 6000 planetary transit-like signals, utilizing three years of data for over 170,000 stars at extremely high photometric precision. Due to its design, ...contamination from eclipsing binaries, variable stars, and other transiting planets results in a significant number of these signals being false positives (Fps). We find that 685 Kepler Objects of Interest (KOIs)-12% of all those analyzed-are FPs as a result of contamination, due to 409 unique parent sources. Of these, 118 have not previously been identified by other methods. Comparing single-planet candidate KOIs to multi-planet candidate KOIs, we find an observed FP fraction due to contamination of 16% and 2.4% respectively, bolstering the existing evidence that multi-planet KOIs are significantly less likely to be Fps. We expect FP KOIs to become more frequent when analyzing more quarters of Kepler data, and note that many of them will not be able to be identified based on Kepler data alone.
Abstract
The Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer (MaGIXS) sounding rocket experiment launched on 2021 July 30 from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. MaGIXS is a unique solar ...observing telescope developed to capture X-ray spectral images of coronal active regions in the 6–24 Å wavelength range. Its novel design takes advantage of recent technological advances related to fabricating and optimizing X-ray optical systems, as well as breakthroughs in inversion methodologies necessary to create spectrally pure maps from overlapping spectral images. MaGIXS is the first instrument of its kind to provide spatially resolved soft X-ray spectra across a wide field of view. The plasma diagnostics available in this spectral regime make this instrument a powerful tool for probing solar coronal heating. This paper presents details from the first MaGIXS flight, the captured observations, the data processing and inversion techniques, and the first science results.
The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) Weisskopf, Martin C.; Ramsey, Brian; O’Dell, Stephen L. ...
Results in physics,
2016, 2016-00-00, 2016-01-01, Letnik:
6
Journal Article
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The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) expands observation space by simultaneously adding polarization to the array of X-ray source properties currently measured (energy, time, and location). ...IXPE will thus open new dimensions for understanding how X-ray emission is produced in astrophysical objects, especially in systems under extreme physical conditions.
ABSTRACT A particularly intriguing recent result from γ-ray astronomy missions is the detection of powerful flares from the Crab Nebula, which challenges the current understanding of pulsar wind ...nebulae and acceleration mechanisms. To search for the production site(s) of these flares, we conducted a multi-wavelength observing campaign using Keck, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. As the short timescales of the γ-ray flares ( day) suggest a small emitting region, the Crab's inner knot (about 0.6 arcsec from the pulsar) is a candidate site for such flaring. This paper describes observations of the inner knot, seeking to understand its nature and possible relationship with γ-ray flares. Using singular-value decomposition, analysis of the HST images yielded results consistent with traditional methods while substantially reducing some uncertainties. These analyses show that the knot's intrinsic properties (especially size and brightness) are correlated with its (projected) separation from the pulsar. This characterization of the inner knot helps in constraining standard shock model parameters, under the assumption that the knot lies near the shocked surface. While the standard shock model gives good agreement in several respects, two puzzles persist: (a) the observed angular size of the knot relative to the pulsar-knot separation is much smaller than expected; and (b) the variable high degree of polarization (reported by others) is difficult to reconcile with a highly relativistic downstream flow. However, the IR-optical flux of the inner knot is marginally consistent with the shock accelerating most of the Nebula's optical-emitting particles.
The Chandra X-Ray Observatory observed the Crab Nebula and pulsar during orbital calibration. Zeroth-order images with the High-Energy Transmission Grating (HETG) readout by the Advanced CCD Imaging ...Spectrometer spectroscopy array (ACIS-S) show a striking richness of X-ray structure at a resolution comparable to that of the best ground-based visible-light observations. The HETG-ACIS-S images reveal, for the first time, an X-ray inner ring within the X-ray torus, the suggestion of a hollow-tube structure for the torus, and X-ray knots along the inner ring and (perhaps) along the inward extension of the X-ray jet. Although complicated by instrumental effects and the brightness of the Crab Nebula, the spectrometric analysis shows systematic variations of the X-ray spectrum throughout the nebula.
We present the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect observations of a sample of 25 massive relaxed galaxy clusters observed with the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich array (SZA), an eight-element interferometer that is ...part of the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA). We performed an analysis of new SZA data and archival Chandra observations of this sample to investigate the integrated pressure-a proxy for cluster mass-determined from x-ray and SZ observations, two independent probes of the intra-cluster medium (ICM). This analysis makes use of a model for the ICM introduced by Bulbul (2010 Astrophys. J. 720 1038) which can be applied simultaneously to the SZ and x-ray data. With this model, we estimated the pressure profile for each cluster using a joint analysis of the SZ and x-ray data, and using the SZ data alone. We found that the integrated pressures measured from the x-ray and SZ data are consistent. This conclusion is in agreement with recent results obtained using WMAP and Planck data, confirming that SZ and x-ray observations of massive clusters detect the same amount of thermal pressure from the ICM. To test for possible biases introduced by our choice of model, we also fitted the SZ data using the universal pressure profile proposed by Arnaud (2010 Astron. Astrophys. 517 A92) and found consistency between the two models out to r500 in the pressure profiles and integrated pressures.
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